What is Christmas

What is Christmas?
I read this in a lovely book edited by Lila EMpson, and written by Phillip H. Barnhart i picked up over the weekend, and want to share it with you, as well as put it on my blog to remind myself:

Christmas is God deep in the flesh.
Martin Luther

Christmas is God’s love coming to everyone in Jesus Christ.
Christmas is God putting his arms of deep and far reaching love around the world and hugging it to himself. Christmas is a cascade of ocean waves energizing your life.
Christmas is a symphonic crescendo that plays and sings its way into your heart.
Christmas is your best time of the year because it is a celebration of God’s moving into your town, your neighborhood, your home, and into you.

Christmas is God in the flesh, making tangible God’s feelings about you.
You acknowledge such love when you put up your tree, decorate it with colors and shapes, and light it in joyful anticipation. You honor such a gift when you choose particular presents for special people and give them in love and appreciation. You affirm the coming of God in Christ when you read the story, sing the songs, listen to the Word, accept the truth , and feel the touch.

Christmas is knowing God loves you and comes to be with you.
Christmas is God in your heart.

A child is born to us, a son is given to us.
Isaiah 0:3 (NLT)

Made a blinkie to proclaim this joyous fact!!





if you like to have it, the url is http://i122.photobucket.com/albums/o258/yin100/blinkie---christmas.gif

Pirates

I've been productive!
It's due to the great amount of wonderful stuff talented people out there are sharing!
It's inspiring!

Well, here is Jared again, this time as a pirate. He's a natural "drama" or dramatic person, you might say. When he is upset he doesn't just cry, he sobs & laments & wails; When he is angry he doesn't just pout, he screams & shouts & rants; When he is happy, he doesn't just smile, he skips around & hugs & kisses; in short, there's never a dull moment, it is also extremely exhausting :)
We know God has blessed us with an extraordinary child, we just have a hard time holding down our little 'pirate'!

(see my gallery at SSB for credits)

Finding time to Scrap again

Finding Time to Scrap Again



I've been taking a break from the equally addictive activity of designing, and enjoying scrapping my own layouts using all the superb talented designs out there. Ahhhhh... it has been so fun and so satisfying!

Here's some layouts from a day we spent out at the Luge.

This is my younger son - he is seven but already talking about when he will be a teenager! But just look at that face! Not so fast, young man!

The entire layout was from Ksharonk's fabulous free kit at her Blog Artistic Musings - i only stumbled upon it this week, and had the layout done in less than half an hour because it was just so coordinated and easy! Thanks Sharon! I'm going to be camping out at your blog regularly from now on!

















I like this shot of our feet! We were on the chair lift and i was bare footed as my slippers were threatening to fall off!
click here for credits: http://www.scrapbook-bytes.com/gallery/showphoto.php/photo/200124/cat/500/ppuser/46888















One more in honour of their brotherhood.

Click here for credits
http://www.scrapbook-bytes.com/gallery/showphoto.php/photo/200000/cat/500/ppuser/46888

My two young men

Here's my two young men

Is that a pose? I think so! They seem to be at the age where I can't for the life of me catch a natural looking photo where they are smiling at me.....sigh. Either they say "Mom... stop taking photos!" or refuse to look my way, or the best they can do is give me a "pose" - gung fu style, or something like that! That's boys at this age for you, I guess! Still, i must admit they look cute and cool to me anyhow :) !

I Love Swimming

Want to share this cute layout with you - don't you think he is cute? Jared still has the chubby cheeks (from me) even though he is seven and lost all the rest of the baby fats! We just came back from a swim at my sister in law's condo, we're so glad we live in tropical climate where we can swim year round!

Simply Me

Here's a layout about me! I had so much fun doing this. 'Cos i don't usually scrapbook about myself, and it was quite a challenge trying to find what defines me! Everyone should do this. I'm hoping i do this more and get deeper next time.
















Here's a layout of two of my best friends.

I got published!

I got published!!!

I just got my copy of the August issue of Creating Keepsakes - my layout has been published on page 44!!! I think it was chosen largely on account of the great photos my husband took of us on our holiday in NZ! I think I can only post it online in a month's time, so will do it then.

In the mean time, here's another of our NZ holiday layout. The quote is "Let Silent Contemplation be Your Offering" this was from King's Park's monument in Perth, but I remember it when we were touring NZ and came across so many war memorials in every little town - it touched me so much that everywhere a family gave someone to the war and to the collective effort that gave us peace today.

A typical Saturday

Today I think I'll record what we do on a typical Saturday in 2006. One day it would be interesting to remember:
The boys woke up at 5:30 am because Sat is the day they get to download computer games and they felt they have no time to lose!!! (i've got to find a way to deal with this)
At 9am both of them have piano class and the two of us enjoy a kaya loti breakfast with my fav kopi si.
At 10am we've reached the Library and today is the last day of the library holiday promotion where we get to borrow 48 books between us!!! Yippee! 4 Creating Keepsakes for me, plus a Real Simple, and the Rough Guide to China (checking out the year end Nanjing trip). The boys are into comics now, TinTin, Asterix, Sherman's Lagoon and Charlie Brown. It's so great that they are developing such a sense of humour! We have a lot of fun reading them together. Of course Ryan is very into those college-age Space books, and Jared is into Magic Tree House, Magic School Bus series. Surprising Ryan also like books by Eleanor Estes, Freddy the pig series, and books by Beverly Cleary. Dad is always into superhero comics, Men's Health, Esquire, Empire, and just enjoyed a novel by Terry Prachet. There! I'm so glad i got all that down as we are such a reading family.
At noon we are always having lunch at Coffee Masters Cafe, Ryan always have the ham and cheese sandwich, Jared the fish and chip, and we like the salmon sandwich and veggie pizza.
Then it's off to Speech & Drama class for the boys at 1pm, during which time we have had a massage, booked a tour, taken a mosaic making class, bought a fridge, an oven, shopped for a tv, a sofa, groceries, a rather productive hour every week!
Then home at 3pm for time of relaxation - snacks, newspapers, internet, computer games, laundry, reading, board games, all to lovely music.
Then a swim if the weather is good, or long bubble baths, and dinner - pizza or something from the hawker centres, or i may be in the mood to try a new recipe.
Then dad is off to his tennis game, the kids soon off to bed after reading "sicky situations" and the bible, chinese version of the Wizard of Oz, and prayers.
Then it's my time to scrapbook, design, or blog - exactly what i'm doing now!

It's a lovely routine, or as Ry will say, our tradition, a simple saturday spent doing everything we love. Wonder what next year's saturdays will be like?

I'm So Glad

I'm so glad

On Sunday before I left for church with the family, I read this little passage (from Passion & Purity by Elizabeth Elliot) which touched me a lot:

... and old Scottish preacher who, as he was serving the bread and wine of the Lord's Supper noticed a young girl sobbing at the communion rail. As he passed her the bread, visible sign of the body of the Lord Jesus ("I give it for the life of the world,"He said) the girl turned away her face, whch was wet with tears.
"tak' it, lassie," said the old man. "it's for sinners."

yes, no one is beyond His grace & mercy.... for He came for sinners, and I'm so glad.

Helen Keller's Words

Helen Keller's words

Today I'm going to take down more quotes that I love by Helen Keller, before i have to return the book to the library. I've been so blessed by her, to be thankful for all i've been blessed with, and even more so, to appreciate more deeply the beautiful world God has made for us to live in, by the senses i've taken so for granted! I've even shared some with my boys and they were suitably awed for 7 & 9 year-olds! May you be blessed too.

So here goes:

Because I cannot see or hear, the thoughtless suppose life must be a blank to me. They do not understand that things have other percious values beside color and sound. It never occurs to them to FEEL a flower, and they do not know what they miss - the exquisite shape of leaf and stem and bud. I do not suppose light suggests to them the radiating, life-giving warmth of the sun. True, I cannot see the stars scattered like gold-dust in the heavens, but other stars just as bright shine in my soul. Letter to Fred Elder, Nov 21 1922

Use your eyes as if tomorrow you would be stricken blind...Hear the music of voices, the song of the bird, the mighty strains of an orchestra, as if you would be stricken deaf tomorrow.
Touch each object as if tomorrow your tactile sense would fail. Smell the perfume of the flowers, taste with relish each morsel, as if tomorrow you could never smell and taste again. Make the most of every sense; glory in all the facets of pleasure and beauty which the world reveals to you. "three days to see" Atlantic monthly, jan 1933

Do you wonder that I love the hand? I have felt its glorious power to love, to redeem, to do the work of the world. All that is noble and generous and creative in the human race has come to me through the hand. "Helen keller's address tot he blind of New York City" Winter 1913

When one door of happiness closes, another opens; but often we look so long at the closed door that we do not see the one which has been opened for us. We bereaved 1929

Happiness is a state of mind, and depends very little on outward circumstances. Speech to fellow passengers on the S.S. president Roosevelt, Oct 1, 1930

God has given each one of us a task, which we can perform better than anyone else. We must find out what that task is, and how to do it in the best way possible. letter to Friends, Mar 30, 1921

More than at any other time, when I hold a beloved book in my hand my limitations fall from me, my spirit is free. Midstream, 1930


I have great joy in the tulips and lilacs which make my garden 'look like the waking of Creation.' O the potent wichery of smell leaves opening delicately on tree and rambler and rose-bush tell me God has passed this way, and I forget the disturbing nearness of the city in the eternal miracle of a tiny garden great with wonders. Letter to Waldo Mac Eagar May 13, 1933

Keep your face to the sunshine and you cannot see the shadows. Quoted in 'Sundry Interviews" A Margazet, undated

No one knows better than I the bitter denials of life. But I have made my limitations tools of learning and true joy. "Helen Keller at 80", interview by Ann Carnahan, June 19, 1960